Peter Simple; and, The Three Cutters Part 62

Stop, before I go on with my story, I'll take my last gla.s.s--I think it's the last: let me count--yes, by heavens I make out sixteen, well told. Never mind, it shall be a stiff one. Boy, bring the kettle, and mind you don't pour the hot water into my shoes, as you did the other night. There, that will do. Now, Tomkins, fill up yours; and you, Mr Smith: let us all start fair, and then you shall have my story--and a very curious one it is, I can tell you; I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen it. Hilloa! what's this? confound it! what's the matter with the toddy? Heh, Mr Tomkins?"

Mr Tomkins tasted, but, like the lieutenant, he had made it very stiff; and, as he had also taken largely before, he was, like him, not quite so clear in his discrimination: "It has a queer _tw.a.n.g_, sir: Smith, what is it?"

Smith took up his gla.s.s, tasted the contents.

"_Salt water" _drawled the midshipman.

"Salt water! so it is, by heavens!" cried Mr Appleboy.

"Salt as Lot's wife!--by all that's infamous!" cried the master's mate.

"Salt water, sir!" cried Jem in a fright, expecting a _salt_ eel for supper.

"Yes, sir," replied Mr Appleboy, tossing the contents of the tumbler in the boy's face, "salt water. Very well, sir,--very well!"

"It warn't me, sir," replied the boy, making up a piteous look.

"No, sir, but you said the cook was sober."

"He was not so _very_ much disguised, sir," replied Jem.

"Oh! very well--never mind. Mr Tomkins, in case I should forget it, do me the favour to put the kettle of salt water down in the report. The scoundrel! I'm very sorry, gentlemen, but there's no means of having any more gin-toddy,--but never mind, we'll see to this to-morrow. Two can play at this; and if I don't salt-water their grog, and make them drink it, too, I have been twenty years a first-lieutenant for nothing--that's all. Good night, gentlemen; and," continued the lieutenant, in a severe tone, "you'll keep a sharp look-out, Mr Smith--do you hear, sir?"

"Yes," drawled Smith, "but it's not my watch; it was my first watch, and, just now, it struck one bell."

"You'll keep the middle watch, then, Mr Smith," said Mr Appleboy, who was not a little put out; "and, Mr Tomkins, let me know as soon as it's daylight. Boy, get my bed made. Salt water, by all that's blue! However, we'll see to that to-morrow morning."

Mr Appleboy then turned in; so did Mr Tomkins; and so did Mr Smith, who had no idea of keeping the middle watch because the cook was drunk and had filled up the kettle with salt water. As for what happened in ninety-three or ninety-four, I really would inform the reader if I knew, but I am afraid that that most curious story is never to be handed down to posterity.

The next morning, Mr Tomkins, as usual, forgot to report the cook, the jar of b.u.t.ter, and the kettle of salt water; and Mr Appleboy's wrath had long been appeased before he remembered them. At daylight the lieutenant came on deck, having only slept away half of the sixteen, and a taste of the seventeenth salt-water gla.s.s of gin-toddy. He rubbed his grey eyes, that he might peer through the grey of the morning; the fresh breeze blew about his grizzly locks, and cooled his rubicund nose. The revenue-cutter, whose name was the _Active_, cast off from the buoy; and, with a fresh breeze, steered her course for the Needles' pa.s.sage.

Chapter III

CUTTER THE THIRD

Reader! have you been to St Maloes? If you have, you were glad enough to leave the hole; and, if you have not, take my advice, and do not give yourself the trouble to go and see that, or any other French port in the Channel. There is not one worth looking at. They have made one or two artificial ports, and they are no great things; there is no getting out, or getting in. In fact, they have no harbours in the Channel, while we have the finest in the world; a peculiar dispensation of Providence, because it knew that we should want them, and France would not. In France, what are called ports are all alike, nasty narrow holes, only to be entered at certain times of tide and certain winds; made up of basins and back-waters, custom-houses, and cabarets; just fit for smugglers to run into, and nothing more; and, therefore, they are used for very little else.

Now, in the dog-hole called St Maloes there is some pretty land, although a great deficiency of marine scenery. But never mind that: stay at home, and don't go abroad to drink sour wine, because they call it Bordeaux, and eat villanous trash, so disguised by cooking that you cannot possibly tell which of the birds of the air, or beasts of the field, or fishes of the sea, you are cramming down your throat. "If all is right, there is no occasion for disguise," is an old saying; so depend upon it, that there is something wrong, and that you are eating offal, under a grand French name. They eat everything in France, and would serve you up the head of a monkey who has died of the smallpox, as _singe au pet.i.te verole_--that is, if you did not understand French; if you did, they would call it, _Tete d'amour a l'Ethiopique,_ and then you would be even more puzzled. As for their wine, there is no disguise in that--it's half vinegar. No, no! stay at home; you can live just as cheaply, if you choose; and then you will have good meat, good vegetables, good ale, good beer, and a good gla.s.s of grog--and what is of more importance, you will be in good company. Live with your friends, and don't make a fool of yourself.

I would not have condescended to have noticed this place, had it not been that I wish you to observe a vessel which is lying along the pier-wharf, with a plank from the sh.o.r.e to her gunnel. It is low water, and she is aground, and the plank dips down at such an angle that it is a work of danger to go either in or out of her. You observe that there is nothing very remarkable in her. She is a cutter, and a good sea-boat, and sails well before the wind. She is short for her breadth of beam, and is not armed. Smugglers do not arm now--the service is too dangerous; they effect their purpose by cunning, not by force.

Nevertheless, it requires that smugglers should be good seamen, smart, active fellows, and keen-witted, or they can do nothing. This vessel has not a large cargo in her, but it is valuable. She has some thousand yards of lace, a few hundred pounds of tea, a few bales of silk, and about forty ankers of brandy--just as much as they can land in one boat.

All they ask is a heavy gale or a thick fog, and they trust to themselves for success.

There is n.o.body on board except a boy; the crew are all up at the cabaret, settling their little accounts of every description--for they smuggle both ways, and every man has his own private venture. There they are all, fifteen of them, and fine-looking fellows, too, sitting at that long table. They are very merry, but quite sober, as they are to sail to-night.

The captain of the vessel (whose name, by-the-bye is the "_Happy-go-lucky_,"--the captain christened her himself) is that fine-looking young man, with dark whiskers, meeting under his throat.

His name is Jack Pickersgill. You perceive, at once, that he is much above a common sailor in appearance. His manners are good, he is remarkably handsome, very clean, and rather a dandy in his dress.

Observe, how very politely he takes off his hat to that Frenchman, with whom he has just settled accounts; he beats Johnny c.r.a.peau at his own weapons. And then there is an air of command, a feeling of conscious superiority about Jack; see how he treats the landlord, _de haut en bas_, at the same time that he is very civil. The fact is, that Jack is of a very good, old family, and received a very excellent education; but he was an orphan, his friends were poor, and could do but little for him: he went out to India as a cadet, ran away, and served in a schooner which smuggled opium into China, and then came home. He took a liking to the employment, and is now laying up a very pretty little sum: not that he intends to stop: no, as soon as he has enough to fit out a vessel for himself, he intends to start again for India, and with two cargoes of opium, he will return, he trusts, with a handsome fortune, and re-a.s.sume his family name. Such are Jack's intentions; and, as he eventually means to reappear as a gentleman, he preserves his gentlemanly habits: he neither drinks, nor chews, nor smokes. He keeps his hands clean, wears rings, and sports a gold snuff-box; notwithstanding which, Jack is one of the boldest and best of sailors, and the men know it. He is full of fun, and as keen as a razor. Jack has a very heavy venture this time-- all the lace is his own speculation, and if he gets it in safe, he will clear some thousands of pounds. A certain fashionable shop in London has already agreed to take the whole off his hands.

That short, neatly-made young man is the second in command, and the companion of the captain. He is clever, and always has a remedy to propose when there is a difficulty, which is a great quality in a second in command. His name is Corbett. He is always merry--half-sailor, half-tradesman; knows the markets, runs up to London, and does business as well as a chapman--lives for the day, and laughs at to-morrow.

That little punchy old man, with long gray hair and fat face, with a nose like a note of interrogation, is the next personage of importance.

He ought to be called the sailing-master, for, although he goes on sh.o.r.e in France, off the English coast he never quits the vessel. When they leave her with the goods, he remains on board; he is always to be found off any part of the coast where he may be ordered; holding his position in defiance of gales, and tides, and fogs: as for the revenue-vessels, they all know him well enough, but they cannot touch a vessel in ballast, if she has no more men on board than allowed by her tonnage. He knows every creek, and hole, and corner, of the coast; how the tide runs in--tide, half-tide, eddy, or current. That is his value. His name is Morrison.

You observe that Jack Pickersgill has two excellent supporters in Corbett and Morrison; his other men are good seamen, active, and obedient, which is all that he requires. I shall not particularly introduce them.

"Now you may call for another _litre_, my lads, and that must be the last; the tide is flowing fast, and we shall be afloat in half an hour, and we have just the breeze we want. What d'ye think, Morrison, shall we have dirt?"

"I've been looking just now, and if it were any other month in the year I should say, yes; but there's no trusting April, captain. Howsomever, if it does blow off, I'll promise you a fog in three hours afterwards."

"That will do as well. Corbett, have you settled with Duval?"

"Yes, after more noise and _charivari_ than a panic in the Stock Exchange would make in England. He fought and squabbled for an hour, and I found that, without some abatement, I never should have settled the affair."

"What did you let him off?"

"Seventeen sous," replied Corbett, laughing.

"And that satisfied him?" inquired Pickersgill.

"Yes--it was all he could prove to be a _surfaire_: two of the knives were a little rusty. But he will always have something off; he could not be happy without it. I really think he would commit suicide, if he had to pay a bill without a deduction."

"Let him live," replied Pickersgill. "Jeannette, a bottle of Volnay, of 1811, and three gla.s.ses."

Jeannette, who was the _fille de cabaret_, soon appeared with a bottle of wine, seldom called for, except by the captain of the _Happy-go-lucky_.

"You sail to-night?" said she, as she placed the bottle before him.

Pickersgill nodded his head.

"I had a strange dream," said Jeannette; "I thought you were all taken by a revenue cutter, and put in a _cachot_. I went to see you, and I did not know one of you again--you were all changed."

"Very likely, Jeannette--you would not be the first who did not know their friends again when in misfortune. There was nothing strange in your dream."

"_Mais, mon Dieu! je ne suis pas comme ca moi_."

"No, that you are not, Jeannette; you are a good girl, and some of these fine days I'll marry you," said Corbett.

"_Doit etre bien beau ce jour la, par exemple_," replied Jeannette, laughing; "you have promised to marry me every time you have come in, these last three years."

"Well, that proves I keep to my promise, any how."

"Yes; but you never go any further."

"I can't spare him, Jeannette, that is the real truth," said the captain: "but wait a little--in the meantime, here is a five-franc piece to add to your _pet.i.te fortune_."